TY - JOUR
T1 - Generous and Ungenerous Contracts
T2 - Case Study of the Artist William Powhida’s Grevsky and Store-to-Own Contracts
AU - Whitaker, Amy
N1 - Funding Information:
The author wishes to acknowledge the NYU Global Research initiative fellowship under which this article was written and to thank William Powhida, Lauren van Haaften-Schick, and participants in the 2020 College Art Association panel where a version of this paper was first given for their insightful comments. The author also thanks the editor and anonymous reviewers for comments which greatly strengthened the work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - This paper investigates the case study of William Powhida and two different contracts that the artist developed: first, the intentionally draconian contracts that the artist developed within an artwork, Grevsky, to force artists into subordinating their intellectual property position to commodification, and second, the contract that the artist William Powhida, the person, developed to ask his friends to help him store art. Applying Grant’s (2013) framework of givers, takers, and transactors, this paper presents a conceptual framework of ungenerous and generous contracts. The paper makes the argument that economic awareness, legal strategy, and a spirit of friendship can co-exist and that draconian contracts are rarely needed in an arts context in which stakeholders are likely to have shared interests in both sides of a contract. This analysis presents a more generalizable framework of non-zero-sum contractual negotiation in relation to the artistic and financial nature of works of art, as well as an argument for the importance of rhetoric and contractual structures of collaboration and friendship. These contractual questions become increasingly important as artists employ self-executing “smart” contracts for blockchain-based or non-fungible token (NFT) works, and as artists continue to rely on contracted freelance work. The increased reliance on digital working conditions creates higher stakes rights management given likelihood of recording.
AB - This paper investigates the case study of William Powhida and two different contracts that the artist developed: first, the intentionally draconian contracts that the artist developed within an artwork, Grevsky, to force artists into subordinating their intellectual property position to commodification, and second, the contract that the artist William Powhida, the person, developed to ask his friends to help him store art. Applying Grant’s (2013) framework of givers, takers, and transactors, this paper presents a conceptual framework of ungenerous and generous contracts. The paper makes the argument that economic awareness, legal strategy, and a spirit of friendship can co-exist and that draconian contracts are rarely needed in an arts context in which stakeholders are likely to have shared interests in both sides of a contract. This analysis presents a more generalizable framework of non-zero-sum contractual negotiation in relation to the artistic and financial nature of works of art, as well as an argument for the importance of rhetoric and contractual structures of collaboration and friendship. These contractual questions become increasingly important as artists employ self-executing “smart” contracts for blockchain-based or non-fungible token (NFT) works, and as artists continue to rely on contracted freelance work. The increased reliance on digital working conditions creates higher stakes rights management given likelihood of recording.
KW - Artist’s Contract
KW - William Powhida
KW - contract law (K12)
KW - cultural entrepreneurship
KW - economic sociology (Z13)
KW - economics of art and literature (Z11)
KW - intellectual property and intellectual capital (O34)
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U2 - 10.1080/10632921.2022.2041141
DO - 10.1080/10632921.2022.2041141
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126376944
SN - 1063-2921
VL - 52
SP - 143
EP - 168
JO - Journal of Arts Management Law and Society
JF - Journal of Arts Management Law and Society
IS - 3
ER -